- Wade - STILL in SonicBids & CMJ 2007: Anatomy of a Scam? …Meh. I LOVE this…..as a past user (used by) Sonicpigs, I got really disgusted that I was allowing myself to fall into the...
- tape in New Single: Patrick Wolf’s “Accident and Emergency” anna nicole smith sex tape
- Borch in Noah and the Whale - Peaceful, The World Lays me Down I forgot about the syrup! Rice cakes then… nothing blander than rice cakes, unless, of course, they’re topped w/ meat.
Everyone w/ a laptop and a facebook account (which is everyone) is a DIY musician now, naturally replacing their Christian name with a handle apropos for a full band, right? What else is new? How do these souls get attention from the masses? (Tough question since they themselves are the masses, by and large). Sound quality is no longer an issue - being audible is enough for myspace and 128 kbps - and besides, any wannabe can, on a pittance, get decent enough equipment to make the days of 4-tracks as distant as piano rolls. And if solid storytelling were enough to capture the public’s attention then Michael Bay would be out of a job (and what a wonderful world that would be), so unfortunately, good sound and good material might not be enough in today’s world. Which could be a problem for Lost On Purpose.
Will Holland of (is, that is) Lost On Purpose has an album’s worth of iTunes downloads that falls under the name Not If But When, which, if you’re tired of self-aggrandizing one-man-bands, is worth a listen. It could even simplify your life and quell your troubled mind with instrumentation and wry observations that don’t waste time.
Take the track ‘guts’, for example - it lasts just over a minute but makes me laugh with the line, “I wish that you broke up with me so I could write 20 songs, but stop in the middle and get drunk.” NIBW has more than a few of those moments that you will unconsciously regurgitate as advice to a sad friend, or a punchline at a party that will make you think, Did I make that up? Wow, I’m cleverer than I thought…
Being wry and casual is nothing new, but works in a pinch. Pretensions, on the other hand, don’t win over many friends, and track 6 ‘ksu interlude’, in which a news ticker plays over a nice melody says very little except, “I can use a laptop real good.” Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Silent Night’ is a disquieting juxtaposition of lullaby and dirge, but here it’s just a throwaway. Still, the rest are sharp little vignettes full of fill-in-the-blanks imagery, mortality with a funny face, moments within a sprawling one-act (‘The 70’s’ is a particularly choice cut - I recommend it).
It’s not a bad thing to resist giving everything you have for a single project, and Not If But When is more a sample of the goods than the full delivery. The songs aren’t a Floydian journey to far-away psychic shores, but lines like, “You remind me why I left Ohio,” bring listener and singer close together. It helps too if you’ve ever been to Amherst, OH - you’ll understand where native son Holland gets this angle, but anyone can find a reason to want to leave their place of origin. NIBW has plenty of moments like this - sample some Will Holland when you’re done w/ GarageBand junkies that pummel w/ proof of how different they are.
It’s hard to resist writing a tome about this album, but the 11 tracks on Noah And The Whale’s Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down do a lot without Big Noise or circumlocution, so I’ll at least try to return the favor…
The swinging and crippling melodies of the titletrack and ‘Shape of My Heart’ belie the torment within… is someone conflicted internally with themselves and externally with the presence - or absence - of love? Tension is everywhere on this album, and both absence and fulfillment are equally represented, and beautifully at that. But whatever the lump sum of praises vs. rejections of God, spirit and love, the music nets a victory for joy. If our narrator is torn between an existential celebration of the Self and an undeniable attraction to the Almighty, the music says, “whatever it is, it’s going to be all right,” and it’s easy to believe. It’s a tribute to life (”life is fleeting, and I love you, and love surrounds you like an ether,”) and death (”let’s leave [the baby] to the wolves so they turn it to food; its flesh keeps it alive, oh and death helps life survive, and life can be kind in its own way”), love and hate, despair and hope.
But wait… there’s levity here too. All of this happens without heavy-handedness, and the melodies would be just as emotive if they were singing the recipe for vegan pancakes (just trying to imagine the blandest food conceivable). It’s sometimes difficult to believe Bob Marley when he sings, “Every little thing gonna be all right,” especially during the months of January through March. But NATW convincingly frame heartbreak and death - the death of a newborn at the hands of lycanthropes, nonetheless - to be a thing of benevolence and comfort. It’s like the Altman movie Prairie Home Companion… sucks that you have to die, but at least it’s Virginia Madsen that takes you to the Next World.
Unfortunately, the frustratingly catchy ‘Five Years Time’ is going to turn a lot of people, and out of context it should… no matter how much you end up hating (or loving) the song, you’ll accidentally whistle along and its cloying melody will be stuck in your cerebral cortex for good. It’s too bad they chose this song for the single - there are plenty of superior songs on the album (10 of them, to be exact) that are guaranteed not to piss you off nearly as much as this one. For the kids, I guess…
Remember last week when I blatantly promoted Camera’s show at the Empty Bottle? No? Well, screw you because the show rocked and, and if you’d heeded certain advice you’d be agreeing w/ me right now before scrambling to mark their next show on your calendar (that is, August 23 at the Bottom Lounge on Lake St.). Meanwhile, you can download their worthy EP Fire & Science, wait until the LP comes out next year, or just read on and see what Joe, David & Ryan think about things. 5 things, to be exact:
1. when historians listen to your most recent CD 1000 years from now, what will they say?
“Bzz nrt blnkt blnkt” That’s robot for satisfactory.
2. if you could play a show with any band/musician living or dead, who would you pick and why?
Roxy Music so I wouldn’t have to pay for a ticket to see them, and um, they are awesome.
3. what is the strangest band-related dream (one of) you have had?
I had a dream that I was asked to play guitar for the Verve and the guitar itself kept falling out of tune while I was on stage. How embarrassing!
4. what do your fans look like?
Attractive youngsters and our parents.
5. what bullshit do you run into at most every show that makes you think “man, this bullshit again?””
Door cost at a show: $10. We bring in: 100 people. We get paid: $60.
bonus question: does the band have a favorite drink of choice?
Joe likes Vitamin Water, David likes uncaffeinated tea, and Ryan drinks synthetic
Chicago! Camera plays tomorrow night, and don’t miss this band, I mean it. The songs on myspace all stand tall, but don’t exactly belie the ground that this trio can cover. Nevertheless, this high-octane amalgam of My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Stellastarr* and Jens Lekman (and a few others… I wonder if their long list of influences are necessarily artists that have saliently impacted them, or if some are on there for effect… nevertheless, their extensive appreciation for numerous styles shows in their own tunes) plays at the Empty Bottle tomorrow night at 9PM for a reasonable $7 cover - this is neither a show nor a band to be disregarded.
Seriously, listen to these tunes and tell me that you won’t think twice about attending the show. And for the record, I’m not on the band’s payroll and am not soliciting for them under contractual or even fraternal obligations… this band is plain good, and deserves all proper respect.
… I indulged in the pleasure of seeing last Friday night Phil Lesh & Friends, that is, the bassist for the Grateful Dead and his new band. So in my years, particularly those within and immediately following college, I amassed a hefty knowledge for the Dead’s catalogue, and found Phil & Friends the Dead offshoot most likely to deliver the deep-cuts.
Friday night was, for the hard-core at least, a pleasure to behold. Of course, I don’t get the feeling that there are many visitors to this site of that ilk, so I’ll spare you the tales of the mind-fuck it was to hear ‘Viola Lee Blues > Big Boss Man > Viola Lee > About Cell Block #9 > Viola Lee’, and that was just the end of the first set.
Nor will I delve into Levon Helm’s opening set, which made a case for The Band’s endurance as the quintessential ‘American Band’ (never mind that they were Canadians, not counting Helm), and also the Grammy he scored for last year’s Dirt Farmer. But I didn’t come here to tell you about that…
I love deodorant, okay? The hippie contempt for hygiene was one of many things that I could never understand that would eventually turn me off of the scene. Seriously, my buddy and I stood next to a dude (he resembled a tattooed bean-sprout) who reeked so bad that I had to bum one of his own cigarettes to keep the funk at bay. There’s that, and the issues of remaining solvent and functional had something to do with my change of lifestyle. Nevertheless, I continue to like the music.
But across town at Schuba’s was something much closer to the mid-60’s Frisco scene from which the Dead sprang, and the hopeless Heads endlessly romanticize. I’m talking about a Mexican-American-psychedelic pop outfit that operates under the name of Alla’.
So a 1/2 hour after P&F closes, I stumble into the CD release party of Alla’s debut Es Tiempo, an impressive disc seven-years in the coming. Trust me, go see the very next show, listen to their music… not later, but now. The hybrid of mind flower noise, pop melody and Mexican folk may, on paper, seen like too much to handle, just as to read their instrumentations appears overwhelming… not so. It is disciplined w/o being sanitized, and is full of astonishing feats that don’t beg for attention. The guest string section, appearance by the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, and the zillion other friends that provided musical muscle to the night’s set were recipe-perfect parts impact, body and balance.
The lyrics, I’m told, take on bold topics, but they are sung in Spanish and, without the benefit of a translation, uni-linguists such as myself are at a disadvantage. Still, listening to an opera in English is nary as powerful as that which is sung in foreign or even ancient tongue, and so too do Alla’s songs take on a mystical tone as sung in the members’ native language. It seems highly unlikely that the songs, were they sung in English, would have such a momentous affect. They are too pristine, veridical, captivating in a way that can only come from great vision and love for heritage without slavishness to the past.
But the unfortunate ethos of Now is to see a band because they’re about to be big. That may be the case with Alla’ (pronounced ‘Aie - ya’, means “over there”), but that’s not the reason to perk up. Go now because they’ll torque your mind and their show is a thing of beauty (which applies to their lead singer Lupe Martinez as well). Latin music tends not to be my thing, being exposed to it largely against my will from the open windows of passing cars, but this has nothing to do with that madrepore of commercial drek on La Ley. In the hands of the Ledezma Brothers, Martinez, and the many other members and guests, the Mexican folk traditions are particularly potent. Alla’ makes me want to know more about the source of their inspiration, and also the extent to which they take this extremely promising experiment.
And in an era where businesses and bands are trying everything they can to get the buyer’s attention w/ gimmicks, it’s refreshing to see a band doing so with pure music.
What is it to be original? To throw out everything that worked before and start anew to grab attention? It worked so well for U2 that they had to return to trite pop tunes to recover their fanbase. How about breathing new life into an existing format? Hell yes, when it comes to the likes of the blues, Tom Petty and Mason Jennings. The latter, on his latest release, goes beyond making fresh the groove we’ve been hearing for years… he toys with the pedantic and makes it grand, cathartic even.
In The Ever is mostly an album about faith. Not that Jennings is proselytizing… it’s a praise album that addresses both the joy of belief and the struggle to transcend. It’s also peppered with a few hit singles, political numbers and regular love songs that Jack Johnson - who appears on the album - would be doing if he would get over that dopey beach bum malaise. Take ‘Never Knew Your Name’… the name and chorus could mislead the casual listener into thinking that it’s about finding the elusive Dream Girl, but it’s Jennings’ tale of a life spent loving the Benevolent Creator and discovering one day that He can be called by name.
It’s far from being filed under ‘Christian Rock’, thankfully. The name itself dignifies what is mere Suck Music about Jesus… this makes life hard for those of us who want something of substance when it comes to the image of the Eternal in art. 100’s of years ago Christ was inspiring the Sistine Chapel and Handel’s Messiah… now it’s Jars of Clay?
And not that Jennings’ beliefs will ever get the Pope’s endorsement, what with ‘I Love You [Jesus] and Buddha Too’, which contrasts the rigid interpretation of the axiom “a man cannot serve two masters”. A closet deist, perhaps? Nevertheless, his is an album not of religious music but music made religiously. Strange that such a simple thing as expressing love and wonderment of Jesus (and other theophanies) can be so stunning, but Jennings’ states it plainly and powerfully without getting weird or alienating an agnostic audience.
And he can swing a good jingle too, lest we forget that life is also about things like sing-alongs, beer and chicks…
The conventional love songs are worthy of Jennings’ most enjoyable material. ’Memphis, Tennessee’ and ‘Your New Man’, remind me of that rare playful side of Bob Dylan that shines on tunes like ‘If You Got to Go, Go Now’, apropos of Jennings’ deft contributions to I’m Not There. ‘Fighter Girl’ is the album’s big single, and is a little too contrived for my taste, but I would probably like it fine were it not destined to be on every Mix CD For [New Girlfriend’s Name] of ‘08.
As expected from Mason Jennings, that mid-range voice w/ just a hint of asperity, and raw-yet-inspired instrumentation makes for ’08’s best road music to date. But the real reward is paying attention and being consumed by such well-guided sincerity and timelessness. This guy is good.
Brushfire Records, May 20, 2008
And apropos to nothing, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Joie!!!
